WASHINGTON – Missouri U.S. Senators Claire McCaskill and Roy Blunt, along with a bipartisan group of Senate colleagues, today demanded a delay in the planned consolidation of up to 82 U.S. Postal Service (USPS) mail processing facilities after the USPS Inspector General found the Postal Service failed to fulfil its obligations to adequately study the impact of the consolidations, and failed to inform the public of those impacts.

“We strongly urge the USPS to delay implementation of any mail processing consolidations until feasibility studies are completed and there has been adequate time for public comment and consideration of those comments,” the Senators wrote. “Completed feasibility studies should include service standard impacts worksheets based on the revised service standards expected to be published on January 5, 2015. There is no reason that the USPS cannot delay its consolidations to provide time for the public to see and comment on the service standard worksheets. It is only fair to allow the process to unfold in this way, and the USPS gains little by deciding to continue the consolidation process on its current, arbitrary timeline.”

The letter, available HERE, was also signed by Senators Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken of Minnesota, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer of California, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden of Oregon, Maria Cantwell of Washington, Robert Menendez of New Jersey, Jon Tester and John Walsh of Montana, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, and Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders of Vermont.